How To Hang Outdoor String Lights

Nothing completes an outdoor space more than having festoon lights delicately strung overhead. There really is something magical about it! If you entertain a lot then it can add some creative flair to your entertaining space. Your guests will be impressed.

We recently wanted to hang festoon lights across a courtyard area for an event that we were hosting. This area was between two buildings that was rather unimpressive so we wanted to add something that would spice it up a bit. Festoon lights will work for that! We just had to figure out how to hang them. We started doing our research and came up with a couple ideas. Without further adieu, let's show you what we did.

Always begin with the end in mind! Let's start with the end result and then we can show you how we got there.

Note: We actually wound up using different planters than we originally started with.

Materials:

One bag of quickrete

One bag of potting soil

4 Plants (we used desert plants)

4 planters (we used plastic)

4 8ft dowels

4 screw hooks

Pea Gravel

First, we wanted to place the screw hooks at the top of the dowels so that they can hold our lights in place.

Then, we want to get these poles standing upright. The method that we wanted to use was cement at the bottom of our planters to hold our poles in place. We used an 80lbs bag of cement mix and since we used four planters we split it up into fourths (about 20lbs per planter).

Now they must dry! We used duct tape to hold the poles in place for the drying process. With the Quickrete it does not take long for it too dry, but we left it over night and they were solid the next day.

The next step is to make these look good. We are into the desert landscape so we wanted to bring that into our look. We just planted two small desert plants in each planter with the cement and the poles.

There you have it! With just a little bit of work you have some great looking poles to hang your string (festoon) lights from. It can change your ordinary backyard into something magical!